The Facebook page for an upcoming "shared world" historical fiction project from famed authors Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear and others. A little bird tells me that Western martial arts will be a central theme throughout the entire project, including significant input from the HEMA community.

6/12/2010 11:25am,

Rivington

I hope they did as much research on the Eastern side as Western. It looks like an interesting title, and Stephenson rarely goes wrong, but there is a strong tendency toward just aping the "Yellow Horde" themes of the old pulps these days, which can get pretty tedious pretty fast Forget 800 pages of the stuff...

Still, I've got mine on pre-order!

6/13/2010 4:39pm,

DerAuslander

Agreed. I'd like to see something a,long those lines that was researched well on the Eastern side, and not just a Yellow Peril retread.

6/18/2010 10:10pm,

Styygens

I saw something about this on one of the blogs I read, io9. Let me post links to the articles:

What I don't think was made clear earlier in this thread is that this isn't a book. It's a collection of web media.

I know I'm getting old because I'm having a hard time understanding exactly how the content will be delivered and what form it will take. Some of it looks like it will be text, some of it looks like it will be video, and some of it looks like it will be "something else." Like I said, I'm just not clear.

This looks like a story I could be very interested in. I have lots of books on Genghis Khan's empire building. It intrigues me that it's possible some of the same Mongols fought against the Teutonic and Templar knights in Europe and the Samurai in Japan. Crazy. This is a perfect Epic story with plenty of opportunity for kickass fights and battlescenes.

I think it's also exciting that someone is looking at using the web for post-book storytelling and pushing the edge of technology.

But I really hope it's made clear how I'm suppossed to access all this wonderful content.

6/18/2010 10:41pm,

DdlR

Ah - yes, I just assumed that people would follow the link to the FaceBook page and get the gist of it from there. The whole project is new media; participants buy into it and help build the world via commentary, discussion, submissions of story elements in whatever form (text, video, etc.) Pretty interesting stuff.

The Mongoliad itself is only the first part of the story ...

6/18/2010 10:48pm,

Styygens

Did I mention how much I hate Facebook?

No?

I should've.

6/18/2010 11:00pm,

DdlR

You and me both, but it's the best portal in terms of the Mongoliad until the project goes fully live.

6/18/2010 11:16pm,

Ningirsu

Quote:

Originally Posted by Styygens

I saw something about this on one of the blogs I read, io9. Let me post links to the articles:

Briefly, Neal has been an active (if very quiet) member of the HES scene for a number of years and the desire to "get the fighting right" is a surprisingly significant motivation behind the Mongoliad. I'm confident that this will become very clear as more of the project is revealed, and I'd be careful about making too many assumptions at this stage based on one context-free photograph.

6/19/2010 12:08pm,

Ningirsu

Quote:

Originally Posted by DdlR

Briefly, Neal has been an active (if very quiet) member of the HES scene for a number of years and the desire to "get the fighting right" is a surprisingly significant motivation behind the Mongoliad. I'm confident that this will become very clear as more of the project is revealed, and I'd be careful about making too many assumptions at this stage based on one context-free photograph.

Well, I honestly hope you're right. I'd be looking forward to this if I could be certain of its quality.

But forgive me, I'm still going to remain skeptical:

"We're also working closely with artists, fight choreographers & other martial artists, programmers, film-makers, game designers"

Hopefully he doesn't consider those to be sources when it comes to learning historical sword fighting. I realize he's doing this ultimately to write a fiction, but I really would prefer if his narratives mentioned "zornhau" and "zwerchau" rather than "wrap shot" or "spin slash".

"Stephenson-designed spring-loaded practice sword that flexes on impact to soften a blow"
So HE designed the wasters for his group? What about the swords in the video? Surely the writer of the article would have thought it more impressive if Stephenson used steel to practice instead.
"On the other hand, the Frenchmen he defeats in the scene in question have never laid eyes on a Japanese person or a katana and so are completely unprepared for his style of fighting"

Right, because fighting with a sword in two hands is sooooo foreign to the Renaissance French. :icon_roll

My general impression is that despite his years of practice and motivation for "getting it right", he's nonetheless failing at it miserably because he's approaching it from the wrong direction and he's neglecting the most important aspects of learning WMA...or any fighting in general.
You mentioned input from the HEMA community, but I can't seem to pinpoint who in any of the links posted.